My mom had eye surgery on 9/12/12. I was prepping to move-in with her essentially and take care of her as her husband was working shift work. 9/13-9/16 was a little crazy. I would get to my Mom's house at 11:00 AM and I was leaving her house around 1:00 AM. I don't sleep particularly easily or well, so I would go to sleep around 3:00 AM and then get up around 8:00 AM to go run work errands and prep whatever I needed to take to her house for that day. So needless to say, I was a little stressed, missing my husband, and tired. So when I cried watching water drain out of the sink, I assumed it was just being overwhelmed with the situation. I wasn't eating much and things really didn't sound appetizing. I was really tired and generally just feeling gross and my stomach hurt, like menstrual cramps. My chest had been randomly tender for the past week or so, but like I had said in my past post I was experiencing a lot of phantom pregnancy symptoms and assumed it was just psychological. Several times during that weekend though, Chris told me to take a pregnancy test because my symptoms were common symptoms of pregnancy. Well for several nights I needed to go to the bathroom at about 4:00 AM and was too tired to take a test then. And deep down I was sure I was not pregnant and didn't want to deal with the sadness of another negative test.
Apparently on Monday Morning, the exhaustion had caught up with me, and I slept through till about 7:30. I decided to take a test that morning to basically stop Chris from asking me to every day. So the cheap-y internet kind that I got suggest going into a plastic cup and dipping in the test. So that's what I did. Before I dipped the test in, I double checked how to read it. The ovulation test can have two lines but still be negative and so I just wanted to double check. The instructions said two lines of any darkness was positive. So I dipped and laid it across the top of the cup. One line showed up first and it wasn't in the window that was supposed to be the control line. So I looked back to the counter to check the instructions again and saw that the line that showed up immediately was the "pregnant" line. In a bit of shock and disbelief, I looked back and assumed the test was faulty because the control line hadn't shown up. By the time i looked back the control line was there. I had two lines. I was pregnant. I started to tear up some and laugh. And then called my ob/gyn immediately to see if I could get in to get a confirmation before I had to be at my mom's. They scheduled me for a week and a half out from that day and I would once again not see my doctor. (I had gone to this doctor for 2.5 years and still had never actually seen him, let alone had him in my appointment). Then all of sudden, I felt very stupid. I took a cheap-y internet test. Several people had had false positives. So I frantically considered running to Walgreens to buy some others. But I figured I would check my drawer in the bathroom just to be sure. I had one extra regular test in the drawer. Dipped it. And it confirmed. I was pregnant.
So then I started thinking, I wanted to tell Chris. Do I call him on his lunch hour? No, I don't want to do this kind of news over the phone. Do I go to Mom's and hold the secret in until He gets there? How do I tell him separate from everyone else? I wasn't sure whether we were going to tell my Mom yet or not. I also had to go in to work to pick up stuff to work on for the week. So I started making some quick decisions. I grabbed a plain white t-shirt assuming I could write something on it. (Have done this for Chris's birthday several times) I got dressed and ran out the door. I called my mom as soon as I got out the door and told her I was going to meet up with Chris for lunch. She knew I was missing him and she was feeling guilty for having me take care of her, so she was all too eager to agree without being suspicious. She asked about my cramps that I had been complaining of and asked if I had started my period yet. I told her no, but I was tempted to start lifting stuff to see if I could make it start, I was trying to throw her way off the trail cause I figured she was a little suspicious like Chris was. I also texted Chris and let him know I was planning on coming for lunch and asked him what he wanted to eat.
I wanted to get a pair of baby Chuck Taylors to give to Chris. Now, Chris and my Mom have this app in case of emergency where they can track me. Chris uses it frequently to check on me. Mostly to make sure I am not driving when he is texting me. So I decided to go to Target because it wouldn't tip him off if he checked. Well, target was a bust. No shoes, but I did get a card to give to him. And used the time to figure out that I was going to present the gifts like I had forgotten to give him a birthday gift that I had found that morning. (This is cute because we used to joke that I was going to give him a baby for his birthday. These ideas were dashed because I never got the period before his birthday.) I was running out of time to try other places, so I took my chances and ran to Babies 'R' Us. I found the Chucks and then decided to find a Grandma bib to give to mom. In case we decided to go ahead and tell mom that day. Then, I ran to church. Gathered all of my work and decided to write "Baby on Board" on the t-shirt. The smell of the Sharpies was unreal. That was my first major "Oh my goodness I'm pregnant moment." I love Sharpies and never smell the fumes normally. I wrapped up the Chucks and the bib. I signed the inside of the card, "<3 Us" (I normally sign <3 Me) and put Happy Belated Birthday on the outside of the envelope.
I was running out of time and starting to get shaky. I know I was nervous but I hadn't eaten yet either and I was starting to feel some mommy guilt about not providing for the baby. I ran to Subway (Chris's choice) got our food and took of for Chris's work! I pulled into his parking lot and took off my sweatshirt and pulled on the Baby on Board shirt. And cover the lettering with my sweatshirt. Chris came out and got in my car. And kissed me hello. I am pretty sure I asked how work was going (to try to be casual) but I don't remember what he said. Then he asked, "What's this?" and pointed to the box and card. I told him that when I was getting ready to head to Mom's I found a gift I forgot to give to him for his birthday. He opened the card first and his eyes caught the picture on the front. The ironic part? I didn't notice the picture until he did. An adult elephant and a baby elephant. His eyes turned vaguely suspicious. He opened the card and started to read. I watched the realization come into his eyes and I pulled the sweatshirt off of my stomach. He looked at me and said, "Are you serious?" I nodded and smiled. He smiled and kissed me. Then I told him to open the box. He knew from the box what they were, but I had him open up the box because I had put the tests in baggie in the bottom of the box. Lots of smiling, lots of kissing. I asked him if he saw my shirt and he hadn't yet. So I showed him. I told him he had to eat because he had limited break time and I needed to eat as well. I think I ate a couple of bites before I got too full.
I asked him about telling my Mom. I figured at that point that I wouldn't be able to live with her and have my symptoms and not tell her what was going on. I showed him the bib and he told me he wanted to be there for it. Now, I knew that one of my step sisters was going to be there at some point so Chris was considering leaving work early so we could tell my mom before she came over. So I took off to my mom's house and found my step sister already there, so I told Chris to hold off until he would normally get off work and we would tell her sometime that night. I visited with my mom and step-sister and her friend for quite a while and they left a few hours before Chris would get there. So mom and I took a nap on the back porch. (much needed for me, by that point) Chris got home and I asked mom if she was ready to watch a movie. She started to get up and I went into the other room and put the wrapped bib on her special chair where she would see it as soon as she sat down. As soon as she sat down, she asked, "What's this?" I told her that I didn't know. As soon as she opened it. I told her she couldn't cry (as part of the surgery recovery). I'm pretty sure she teared up, but she was very excited and said it didn't hurt when she cried.
The next day I told my best friend, unfortunately in sort of rushed timing, so we didn't get much time to talk. But I didn't know how soon I would be able to get there to talk because of taking care of mom. Everyone else will be waiting until Thanksgiving time because Chris wants to tell his family in person when we take our annual trek down there and we don't want to take any chances of information being leaked to them.
I put my mom to work right away and told her about my current ob/gyn and told her I wanted to switch. So she called around and got some referrals and I called and scheduled an appointment for Thursday morning. And then we made a bunch of insurance calls to see what all was covered under our insurance.
The appointment on Thursday went well. I got a pregnancy confirmation and despite telling them that it was impossible for me to as pregnant as my last period would suggest, they told me that I was eight weeks. I was assuming somewhere between four and six. I scheduled my first ultrasound for October 2nd.
Chris left work early on the 2nd. Apparently we had a time mix up. The lady who made the appointment told me 2:45 and wrote down 2:15. So they were anxiously awaiting me and took my right in! We got to see and hear the heartbeat! 167 bpm. And she said everything was just where it should be! And she told me I was 8 weeks and 1 day, rather than 10 weeks and 3 days. Which is exactly what I was thinking. It was very very surreal and exciting!
These are the symptoms I have already experienced at some point in the last 9 weeks:
- Mild Cramping
- Back Pain
- Nausea
- Vomitting
- Bloating
- Gas
- Headache
- Acne (More than normal)
- Exhaustion
- Weepiness
- Irritability
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